


And love Creation's final law

by rightsidethru



Series: Steter Week 2019 [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Peter Hale, Bad Alpha Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Bad Friend Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Canon-Typical Violence, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Steter - Freeform, Steter Week, Steter Week 2019, Werewolf Hunters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 13:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20047159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rightsidethru/pseuds/rightsidethru
Summary: There wasn’t much that Stiles hated more than Codeless hunters—Butbraindead, moronically inclined Codeless hunters? Yeah, that’d do it.





	And love Creation's final law

**Author's Note:**

> Another quickly written story done during lunch break. Ooops? :D;;;
> 
> This one could fall under a couple of the Steter Week prompts, but the one it was intended to be written for was:  
July 30: Badasses in Love and/or Alpha!Peter
> 
> The title is a reference to "In Memoriam A.H.H." (or simply "In Memoriam") by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The more recognizable line is:   
_Who trusted God was love indeed_  
_And love Creation's final law_  
_**Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw**_  
_With ravine, shriek'd against his creed_

There wasn’t much that Stiles hated more than Codeless hunters—

But _braindead_, moronically inclined Codeless hunters? Yeah, that’d do it.

*

Everything hurt.

Stiles’ breaths came in desperate, wheezing pants as he hung between two hunters, carried roughly and without a care for the leg that was dragged brokenly along the rough concrete; each small obstacle along the way shot fire up the teen’s calf and thigh—every movement was, literally, agony—and there was nothing he could do in stifling the soft whimpers that slipped past his lips.

He’d been beaten bloody, tortured for information that he was no longer privy to: abused to the point that his throat had been scoured raw from the screams that had been ripped out of the boy for _hours_ on end—and all because the hunters had been too stupid to do the proper research to realize that Stiles and Scott were barely acquaintances now. _Pack_ was a concept that had long ago been abandoned between the True Alpha and his would be-Emissary.

Too many silences, too many instances of blood-soaked hands; too many times where Stiles had reached out and Scott had turned away, both literally and metaphorically. The straw had broken the camel’s back _years_ before, but Stiles had always been too good at playing pretend.

(Playing human as he stood next to his mother’s bedside and watched as she slowly gasped for air, fighting the inevitable—as he’d fought, too, each and every time she’d held him under the water—before finally giving in, giving up, and _ending_.)

But here and now:

The thing that Stiles hated more than Codeless hunters were Codeless hunters too stupid to do the barest minimum of investigating, of asking even the most basic of questions to get the lay of the land before descending upon Beacon Hills like a plague of locusts. Codeless hunters too stupid to realize before they took the whiskey-eyed teen that he and Scott weren’t pack, weren’t friends, weren’t even on speaking terms and hadn’t been for ages. Codeless hunters too stupid to realize that they had no leverage _because no one was coming for Stiles_.

He chuckled wetly in the hunters’ hold, weight sagging further between the two men as bright red blood bubbled up from between his lips.

_Fuck, I hate you,_ Stiles thought, blood a bitterly iron tang upon his tongue.

(Thought at--)

*

The teen hadn’t thought that the pain would get any worse, but—well, life seemed intent on proving him wrong. A bit-back yelp escaped him as the hunters tossed him into a dank basement room, uncaring of the damage they continued to deal on Stiles’ already broken body. He skidded across the floor, blood smearing in his wake, and the teen only stopped when his back slammed into another body that had been previously occupying the room.

Stiles grunted as his momentum arrested finally, and the teen immediately curled into the fetal position to protect his now vulnerable belly. No additional pain followed: just jeering laughter and the vibrations of boots stomping back towards the door, promises of _more_ (no specifics, just _more_, because the unknown was always more terrifying than what was familiar and expected) tomorrow even as the lock clicked shut.

Stiles shuddered and the curve of his body tightened further into a blood-smeared comma—

“…’iles…?”

\--though his tremors stopped immediately at the quiet exhale of his name.

The amber-eyed boy shifted just enough to look over at his fellow prisoner, though Stiles already had a feeling that he knew what he’d find; the pack had always converged into a tightly-knit cog-run machine whenever a threat made itself known. All of the others had paired up, stopped going places alone: all for one and one for all, no man left behind and no straggles given up for the hunters to pick off.

Except—

Stiles opened his eyes and met pain-glazed neon blue.

“Hey there, Creeper Wolf,” the teen hoarsely whispered.

Despair darkened the older man’s gaze, and Stiles could do nothing except look away.

*

_I don’t want to die._

Anger, the stubborn will to _live_, hate at the injustice of it all: at the fact that Scott’s refusal to see Stiles for who he truly was, had been _all along_, refusal to listen or learn or realize that not everything could be the easy black and white outlook that the True Alpha clung to so desperately—hated the fact that he always fell short, that he always drew the short straw, that he was always the one reaching out and desperate for anyone, _someone_, to reach out and finally _see him_: hated, hated, hated—just _hated_, fury rising up and _burning_, leaving the teen short of breath and desperate for anyone, _someone_, to finally open their eyes and _see_ just who he truly was—

Rage lit the Spark.  
Rage fueled the flame.  
Rage set the inferno alight:

_I don’t want to die._

_I **will not** die._

_**We** will not die._

Scott’s pack had made the decision to set him aside; Scott’s pack had thought that he wasn’t worthy enough to remain amongst their number; Scott’s pack had looked at him and had found him _wanting_ when Stiles knew the true value of his worth. Price and value:

“Peter,” Stiles murmured as he scooted across the rough floor of the basement room. He reached out, curling fingers possessively around the older man’s bloody wrist. “Peter. Get up.”

The ‘wolf’s lashes slowly lifted, and Peter Hale stared up at the ceiling above him with a hazy gaze: eyes unfocused and consciousness Elsewhere for long, lingering moments until he was forced back to awareness when Stiles’ fingers tightened in their hold. He tilted his head towards the boy—the only one he considered _pack_—and met the teen’s whiskey gaze with his own glacial one.

“Get up, Peter,” Stiles demanded, expression resolute and hardening as the older man’s lashes dipped low, unconsciousness threatening darkly at the edges of Peter’s awareness. Wolfsbane and mountain ash had ravaged his body, left him weak and injured—never healing, plateauing into this pain-filled fog—and though he wished he could do as Stiles demanded…

There was no back-up plan to fall back on this time around.

Peter had no more Aces hidden up his sleeves.

“Get _up_, Peter.”

“…c’n’t…”

The ‘wolf didn’t want Stiles’ story to end here, in a horrific ouroboros cycle that mirrored his family’s deaths in ways that still broke the man, even years later. Limbs missing, chunks of his soul ripped out from the events of that night: but here and now, with the loss of Stiles, Peter’s blackened, shriveled heart would finally give out and beat its last.

“_Get up, Peter._ **Now.**” 

Peter jerked upright at the command that laced Stiles’ voice, the razor-blade edge that seemed into each syllable: words fell and the ‘wolf _ached_ to obey, shadowed parts of himself howling to the moon that was finally dipping down towards the horizon.

His eyes snapped open, going wide as Stiles’ touch became hot enough to _burn_ the ‘wolf up from the inside out, and crimson flared to life within the older man’s gaze.

The red flared brighter and brighter still, eating away at the wolfsbane and mountain ash that the hunters had flooded into Peter’s body, fully intending on ensuring that the man never left the safehouse in anything other than a body bag: and as black chased itself along the protruding lines of the ‘wolf’s veins, Stiles continued viciously yanking at the Alpha Spark hidden within Scott’s chest and shoving it—everything, all that made an _Alpha_ and the multitude of what the other teen _wasn’t_—into Peter. 

Judge, jury, and executioner; Scott had never understood the true role that an Emissary was supposed to play. Hadn’t _wanted_ to listen, clinging as he had to Deaton’s sanitized version. Didn’t want to acknowledge the role that Stiles was supposed to play within the pack, the foil that was intended to stand opposite the True Alpha.

Didn’t want to _know_.

(So Stiles ensured that he never would.) 

More and more and more: taking advantage of the tattered pack bond that Stiles, despite knowing better, had clung to with white-knuckled fingers and used now to anchor the pull that would have been agonizing on Scott’s end as more and more of his strength left the other teen. Fully aware of the pain that he was causing, Stiles still never stopped (pain, chaos, and strife: the nogitsune never really comprehended just _what_ and _who_ it was possessing). And thus Stiles continued, relentless and never-ending: Sucking the ‘wolf dry until the only thing left to his one-time brother was a pair of golden eyes (edged with blue) and a broken would-be pack.

“Get up—_Alpha_.”

And Peter roared.

::end::


End file.
